UK News

An artist has blasted a gallery as fearful after discovering her nude paintings had been censored with strategically placed strips of paper.

Danuta Gray has removed her three watercolours of naked women from Birmingham's Botanical Gardens studio two weeks before her exhibition was due to end.

Gallery bosses have stood by their prudery, which was prompted by an easily offended teacher whingeing during a school trip.

Gray said:

It's a nonsense. You can't even see a nipple! They are showing such ignorance.Nudes have been depicted since the fourth century BC. They are present in all cultures. I never thought that the Botanical Gardens would exhibit such hypocrisy, prejudice and fear. This is England.

The Botanical Gardens management stood by their decision. A spokesprat alluded to political correctness and diversity saying:

The Birmingham Botanical Gardens welcomes diverse audiences from around the world. We do our very best at all times to ensure everyone has an enjoyable time whilst they are on site. Sometimes we have to adapt spaces for use by different sectors of our audiences at different times

A former mayor of Dudley who viewed pornography on his council computer has revealed he will step down from the authority when his office in term expired next year. he also resigned from the Conservative Party whip.

Councillor Ray Burston was issued with a formal warning at a Dudley Council moral standards sub-committee meeting after admitting to visiting the adult websites. It was the second time he had been reprimanded for viewing pornography, the previous warning being about 10 years ago.

The Conservative leader on the council, Councillor Patrick Harley, crowed that the right decision had been made. He bullied, moralised and threatened:

Everyone is allowed to make a mistake, but you have to learn from it ...But... when I found it was not the first time Councillor Burston had been warned, I'm afraid there was only one way this could go.

He has fallen on his own sword. It is sad for him, he has not done anything illegal, but he has broken the council code of conduct, and for that he has paid the ultimate price.

It should serve as a reminder to all members on both sides of the council that no-one should flout the code.

Tottenham Hotspur fans who use the word Yid should not face prosecution, David Cameron has said.

The Prime Minister entered the row after the Football Association last week issued a statement warning supporters they risk receiving a banning order or even criminal charges if they continue to air the word.

For years Tottenham, who have a strong Jewish following, have been on the receiving end of anti-Semitic abuse from opposition fans. In an act of defiance, some fans started using the word Yid themselves, and chants of Yids , Yid Army and Yiddos are regularly sung in the home stands at White Hart Lane.

Cameron told The Jewish Chronicle:

There's a difference between Spurs fans self-describing themselves as Yids and someone calling someone a Yid as an insult.

You have to be motivated by hate. Hate speech should be prosecuted - but only when it's motivated by hate.

Male and female readers of the Sun strongly support Page 3 topless models, according to the chief executive of the paper's publisher News UK.

Mike Darcey said that ultimately any decision on the future of the Page 3 models is up to the Sun's editor, David Dinsmore, but that he believed customers are very happy with the Sun's editorial offering.

Darcey said that focus groups with those readers showed that both male and female Sun readers are happy to continue to see Page 3 in the UK's best selling daily.

There are around 12 million people a week who read the Sun and they are very happy with the package that is the Sun. And so they continue to buy it. We ask them, we have focus groups with them, ask what they think and they very strongly continue to support that. That's true across male readers, female readers. And in the end this is a product people can choose to buy or not to buy.

Meanwhile miserable campaigners push for their own selfish ends and continue to lobby for the banning of Page 3. Mediasnoops reports:  No More Page 3 Wants Co-Op To Ban The Sun Too .

Madras Cafe is a 2013 Indian action drama by Shoojit Sircar.
With John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri and Rashi Khanna.

The film proved controversial in India as it is based on the Sri Lankan civil war where emotions are still running high. Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi died when an LTTE suicide bomber detonated a bomb at an election rally in May 1991. A similar incident has been showcased in the film's trailer. However, the director explained that the film is only partially based on fact:

We have taken that incident which we read in the paper. Rest, whatever is around it, has been fictionalised in the scripting. But somewhere you may find some historical references in the fictionalised bit too.

Madras Cafe invoked the ire of Tamil activist groups Naam Tamizhar and MDMK. The members have sought a ban on the film contending that it portrays LTTE cadres as terrorists. Several court cases later, the film was released across India, however cinemas in the state of Tamil Nadu refused to show the film.

Three major cinema companies in the U.K. decided not to screen Madras Cafe . The film was to have opened in the U.K. on August 28, 2013 in theatres owned by Cineworld, Odeon and Vue.

But on August 24, protests began outside the head office of these theatres, organised by Sri Lankan Tamil groups led by the Tamil Youth Organisation (U.K.). Carrying placards that said, Inciting violence is not entertainment, Ban Madras Cafe , Ban hate speech , its members shouted slogans and burnt copies of the film's posters. The protests somehow managed to elude press coverage, despite the dramatic theatricals of posters being burned.

The anti-Madras Cafe campaign went on the Facebook page of the Tamil Youth Organisation. An online campaign called on Tamils to sign a petition against the film, and to telephone theatres to protest the screenings.

When the cinemas complied with this demand, exultant messages appeared on the page. The theatres played down the ban though, perhaps suggesting that they had little desire to oppose the censorship, and certainly didn't want to take it any further.

A senior executive from Odeon, in response to a question from The Hindu, merely said her company does not wish to cause any offence to any local community groups and hence took the decision. A Cineworld spokesperson was equally guarded. Our policy is to show a wide range of films to different audiences. However, following customer feedback and after working with the film distributors, we have decided not to show Madras Cafe.

The issue then sank from public gaze, but a few voices have registered  disquiet. It is hard to believe that we are living in a first world country, said a senior media industry executive who did not want to be named: A group of people created a ruckus in front of Cineworld's offices, and the film is withdrawn! And neither does the U.K. government nor the Indian High Commission intervene.

Conversations with South Asian activists suggest that they did not want to get involved because they do not wish to mess with the pro-LTTE Tamil groups, which are well organised and militant.

Madras Cafe is a 2013 Indian action drama by Shoojit Sircar.
With John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri and Rashi Khanna.

The film is proving controversial in India as it is based on the Sri Lankan civil war where emotions are still running high.  Director Shoojit Sircar has conceded that his movie may have certain scenes resembling events related to Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, but he clarifies that the film's story is not a biopic on the former prime minister. Sircar said:

This is not a biopic on him, this is not a story based on him. Yes, you can say that there is a similarity to that incident. There is a similarity in the facial structure (of the actor who plays the said role).

Rajiv Gandhi died when an LTTE suicide bomber detonated a bomb at an election rally in May 1991. A similar incident has been showcased in the film's trailer. However, the director explained:

We have taken that incident which we read in the paper. Rest, whatever is around it, has been fictionalised in the scripting. But somewhere you may find some historical references in the fictionalised bit too.

Madras Cafe is already facing the ire of Tamil activist groups Naam Tamizhar and MDMK. The members have sought a ban on the film contending that it portrays LTTE cadres as terrorists.

Banned in Tamil Nadu

The film was passed by the Indian film censors but faced court actions calling for a ban in Madras and Tamil Nadu. The court actions failed, but cinema owners took the hint in Tamil Nadu and decided not to exhibit the movie.

Banned in Britain

Now the film has been similarly banned by British cinemas. UK cinema chains, Cineworld, Odeon and Vue, have banned the film saying in a statement:

Our policy is to show a wide range of films for different audiences ...HOWEVER... following customer feedback and working with the film distributors, we have decided to not show Madras Cafe. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Press reports suggested that some Tamils had complained that the film was anti-Tamil. The Facebook page of the Tamil Youth Organisation UK has been full of agitation against the film.

The BBFC passed the film 15 uncut for strong violence and injury detail. The BBFC InSight alluded to the emotional impact of the film:

This is a sombre drama and the violence is depicted realistically, with a strong emotional impact. In the opening scene people are forced off a bus and made to kneel in a field as they are massacred. Blood spurts are seen as several of them are shot in the back, and in a more distant image a little girl is shot too as she tries to run away. Several executions are shown, including a man tied to a post, his body juddering under fire with lots of blood as he is killed.

A champion of a secret police state, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair, has called for anti-terror laws to be extended to prevent leaks of official secrets. Blair claimed that publication of such material could put lives at risk.

Blair told BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme:

The state has to have secrets - that's how it operates against terrorists.

It has to have the right to preserve those secrets and we have to have a law that covers a situation when somebody, for all sorts of wonderfully principled reasons, wishes to disclose those secrets.

It just is something that is extremely dangerous for individual citizens to [make] those secrets available to the terrorists.

He claimed there was a new threat which is not of somebody personally intending to aid terrorism, but of conduct which is likely to or capable of facilitating terrorism , citing the examples of information leaks related to Bradley Manning and the Wikileaks website. He said:

Most of the legislation about state secrets is in the Official Secrets Act and it only concerns an official.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has said: The state that is building such a formidable apparatus of surveillance will do its best to prevent journalists from reporting on it.

Europe's top justice official has expressed worries about press freedom in the UK after British authorities' crackdown on the Guardian over its revelations of US spying programs based on leaks by Edward Snowden.

Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland has called on British Home Secretary Theresa May to explain the pressure put on the newspaper by the British officials over Snowden case.

And Viviane Reding, the EU's commissioner in charge of privacy rules has backed up this call. She said on Twitter:

I fully share Jagland's concerns [over the issue].

British Prime Minister David Cameron ordered his top civil servant Sir Jeremy Heywood to collect sensitive material which has been leaked to the paper by Snowden to be published. Brazilian David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was also detained on Sunday at Heathrow Airport, where he was in transit on his way from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro.

Comedian Jeff Mirza has been reported to police for using the word Paki on flyers for his Edinburgh Fringe show.

Mirza was dressed in character as a butcher called Paki Bashir while handing out the leaflets on on the Royal Mile. He was questioned at a city centre police station after handing a flyer for his show Meet Abu Hamsta and Paki Bashir to a fellow British Asian, who took offence.

However the comedian told police that he was trying to reclaim the word, and was sent on his way. Mirza said policemen advised him to put his finger over the offensive word when handing out flyers in future. Police said they would take no further action.